Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis was known by many names, but to us, she is Jackie. And whether she liked it or not, she was, and still is, the most famous woman in the world.

“No one else looked like her, spoke like her, wrote like her, or was so original in the way she did things,” said her brother-in-law Senator Edward Kennedy. Her style — what made her Jackie — has been emulated, imitated, even occasionally reviled, but never fully examined. For the first time, this biography details the singular life that made Jackie an icon and contributed so greatly to her enduring appeal. Drawing on original interviews with Valentino, Hubert de Givenchy, Manolo Blahnik, and Oleg Cassini, as well as close friends C. Z. Guest, George Plimpton, and John Loring, and family members such as Joan Kennedy, Hugh D. Auchincloss, and John Davis, this compelling volume brings to life the private Jackie her family and friends loved.

With one hundred rare color and black-and-white photographs and sketches, and never-before-published personal letters, memos, and essays, Jackie Style re-creates not only Jackie’s extraordinary history — fashion being just one part of it — but the world she came from, the White House she revived, the husband and children she adored, the causes she supported, and, finally, the life she chose to lead.